Dear David,
Thanks very much for your comments on the W3C Patent Policy 14 Nov 2002
Last Call working draft. We have noted one of your comments as Issue
L14[1] and L15 on the Last Call issues list and have this response:
You suggested that the deadline for excluding patents from the RF
licensing commitment should be early in the life of a working group. We
agree with your assessment that the requirements document may come too
late in the process and also may not be well defined enough to serve as
a basis for excluding patents. We have identified a point 90 days after
publication of the First Public Working Draft (ideally, the second
public WD) as the exclusion point. This provides a document to trigger
exclusion and also has the benefit of being well-grounded in existing
W3C Process.
You also suggested that we remove the term 'royalty-free' from the
policy. The name was chosen because it reflects the basic goal of the
policy. We do not intend to change the name at this point, but will
consider the question again during the AC Review period.
If you do not agree with this approach, please contact us again no
later than 18 March 2003.
Thanks again for your comments,
Daniel Weitzner
Chair, W3C Patent Policy WG
[1] http://www.w3.org/2001/ppwg/rf-patent-policy-lc-issues.html#L12